Commenter Brian Kinsley at In Contention reads a spoiler-ish LATimes piece about The Road so we won’t have to. (There’s a tip-off to a change from the novel that I don’t want to know about.) Here’s something we can read that inspires anticipation instead of ruining it:
Using money from public relations executives and nascent producers Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, Wechsler won “The Road’s” movie rights in a bidding war before the book was published. He then approached Hillcoat, unaware that the British filmmaker had directed 2005’s little-seen but highly regarded western “The Proposition” as a homage to McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian.” (Like “Blood Meridian,” Hillcoat’s “The Proposition” is a bloody meditation on frontier justice where the rule of law is both a principle and a casualty.)
“No Country’s” Academy Award-winning producer Scott Rudin and “Little Children” filmmaker Todd Field have been developing a “Blood Meridian” movie, and Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik wants to film “Cities on the Plain,” the last book in McCarthy’s border trilogy. Said Field in explaining McCarthy’s appeal: “His work examines our core, the two faces of violence that co-exist in every savage act — brutal strength of purpose holding hands with a desperate and cowering weakness.”
Two reasons to keep on living, regardless of what happens in November.
I think I might be the only one, but I’m really thrilled Todd Field is taking on Blood Meridian instead of Ridley Scott. I’d love to see his meticulous humanism as a filmmaker applied to a project on a completely different scale from his previous work.
I like Scott, but he and McCarthy never seemed a happy fit to me.
After Dominick dazzled the serious world of cinema with his brilliant JESSE JAMES, it stands to reason that most of us are quaking in our boots for his next film, and what better than a McCarthy novel? I agree with teh above posters, this is reason to celebrate.
Love it.
Great to see such a prestige group of directors to clamour for the rights of the respected writer’s works.:)
Yeah, I thought that Ridley Scott was tackling Blood Meridian.
I am definitely interested in Andrew Dominik’s next project.
I like the idea of these nouveau westerns being in the hands of talented Australian directors, with the music of Nick Cave/Warren Ellis as the connecting thread.
A Todd Field BLOOD MERIDIAN is puzzling, albeit intriguing. But doesn’t Ridley Scott have the rights??